


Times of Tears

by Etaleah



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Childbirth, Crying, Emotional, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Military, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, Parenthood, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Single Parents, Tragedy, War, Women in the Military, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 17:37:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17329469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etaleah/pseuds/Etaleah
Summary: As a soldier, the moments when Olivier felt moved enough to tear up were rare indeed. Five life-changing moments managed to do the trick.





	1. Love

"For the last time, put me down! Get out of here and leave me behind, that's an order." Olivier screamed over the roaring winds of the blizzard. Buccaneer only held her tighter and continued trudging forward. Olivier wanted to shake him, strangle him,  _make_ him realize that she wasn't worth him getting killed over. It was her own fault that she'd twisted her ankle by tripping over that damn tree root. It was her fault that a bullet had grazed her. If she died, the men were supposed to write her off as being too weak; that was the Briggs way. If nothing else, better to have only one soldier die than two.

Buccaneer, that useless idiot, refused to listen to her. She'd seen the grey clouds coming and had told him in no uncertain terms to get himself out of there before it was too late. It was a simple matter of survival of the fittest, and he could still make it to safety. That is, he could have. Instead he'd scooped her up bridal style and carried her in his arms for miles despite her protests. She'd struggled, kicked with her good leg, and tried to wriggle out of his arms, but he never dropped her. Until now, he never even faltered.

Buccaneer began to slow down as the snow underfoot increased. He grunted. She felt his body trembling. She felt dampness near her legs and when she leaned forward she smelled blood. As fine as Briggs engineering was, Buccaneer's automail couldn't support her weight, stay attached to Buccaneer, and deal with the cold all at the same time. Panic rose in Olivier's chest. What if his automail was being torn right off of his skin?

"Idiot, listen to me!" Olivier shouted again. "You can't last much longer in this storm. Stop trying to be a hero and just  _leave_ me. I'll be fine." He took another step, then another. "I understand what you're trying to do, but there's a fine line between looking out for your comrades and plain foolishness, and you crossed it a long time ago!"

That was a lie. She didn't understand at all what he was trying to do. Olivier couldn't imagine why in the world Buccaneer would do this. He was captain; lower-ranking men depended on him.

Then again, she didn't understand a lot of what Buccaneer did.

Like how he left flowers on her desk with every holiday and birthday, most of which she burned or threw away. Or how he'd break off a branch of mistletoe and teasingly wave it over their heads. All the other men who had tried to hit on her had taken a hint (and a beating) and given up, but not him. It was pathetic and Olivier was losing her patience with it.

"I'm not gonna leave you, so you can just shut up!" he shouted back. This was the first time he'd spoken in over an hour. "If you die, I'm dying too."

"And why the hell is that?" Olivier shot back. "Why lose two lives when you only need to lose one? That's just wasteful." Buccaneer slowly regained his footing and pressed on. Olivier swore and punched his cheek. The fact that he still didn't drop her was maddening.

"Don't you get it?" She yelled into his ear. "I don't need you and I  _don't like you_! If you think that trying to rescue me is going to win you my affections, then you're sadly mistaken. Put me down now or I swear if this storm doesn't kill you, I will."

Even she knew she didn't mean it.

* * *

Buccaneer was close to passing out, but he was far too stubborn to quit. Having an extremely unwilling damsel in distress yapping in his ear was not helping, however. This insane storm seemed to go on forever; he couldn't remember a time in all the years he'd been at the fort when a blizzard lasted this long. Olivier wasn't heavy, but she could get heavy after a while, especially when she wouldn't stay still. He had to find shelter soon or they'd both die fairly quickly. He could barely stand up.

Several agonizing steps later, his prayers were answered. A very old and decrepit brown shed rested under a few trees. It wasn't much protection since there were holes in the walls and it looked like the roof was falling apart, but at least it had a door that closed. Buccaneer headed for it, yanked the door open, and unceremoniously dumped Olivier on the ground a bit less than gently.

"Ow!" She clutched her hurt ankle and bit her lip, but he felt no sympathy. His feet had lost all feeling and it would be a miracle if he didn't lose all of his toes to frostbite. As soon as the door was closed, Buccaneer scanned the shed for any supplies and spotted a few old, heavy blankets tucked away in an open closet. He snatched them up, struggled out of his jacket and uniform top, and pressed one of them to his right arm, which was killing him. His automail had been designed with the freezing north in mind, but even technology had its limits. He wished he had some warm oil to put on it.

"You're a fool," Olivier continued to seethe from where she was curled up on the floor, still nursing her ankle. "An idiotic, naïve fool—"

"Can it, will you?" he snapped. "You may not value your life, but I do. You can call me whatever you like, but I'll die before I leave you out here alone."

Olivier huffed. "I didn't ask for your help," she sulked.

"Believe me, I would never accuse you of that." To his immense relief, the bleeding began to slow. He took his left hand away for a minute and searched in his pocket for the box of matches he always carried around. Just as he had feared, they were too damp to be of any use. He tossed the box aside. He wanted to ask Olivier how her ankle was; it looked bad, but he was feeling too annoyed with her at the moment.

She didn't seem to mind speaking to him, however. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why should my life be worth more than the others'?" she asked, and her voice was surprisingly calm, if exhausted. "You seem to be going against your own logic, Captain. You've always told the men you trained that Briggs soldiers fight as one. No cog in the machine is worth more than the others, not even the high-ranking ones."

Buccaneer didn't have an answer for that. Not a good one anyway. "Every rule has exceptions," he grumbled. "'Sides, if you'd have died, the people in Central would panic and send us one of their sissy generals to replace you. Drachma would have had a field day."

He saw Olivier smirk a bit at his comment on sissy generals. They both thought getting promoted in Central City was ridiculously easy and happened far more often by money and favor changing the right hands than it did actual merit and skill. Buccaneer would bet money none of  _them_ had been forced to seek shelter in a ramshackle shed with the wind pounding against it and the temperature well below freezing.

"Given how tightly they hold onto their favorites, my guess would be that Central would promote Miles first and put him in charge, and have you be his assistant." She turned to face him. "Are you sure you want to give that up?"

Buccaneer feigned interest in his automail, which had stopped bleeding even though it hurt like hell. Olivier sighed.

"What is this really about, Captain? Out with it."

Buccaneer was already blushing so fiercely he was grateful for the darkness. "You're the best commander I've ever had."  _And there was a time when I never thought I would say that about a woman_ , he thought but was smart enough not to say.

Olivier asked, in a tone he'd never heard her use before, "Is that all?"

Buccaneer took a breath to slow his heart and mumbled, "No." He hated awkward silences more than anything else in the world and tried to dispel it by getting up and walking around the shed. He stumbled over something and discovered it was an old, wadded up blanket. "Here," he said, tossing it at her.

Olivier moved closer to him. "Did you even think to take this for yourself?"

Buccaneer forced himself to face her. "No. Not really."

Olivier sighed and came even closer. His heart began to speed up again. "It makes more sense for us to share it." She spread it out and the two of them wiggled underneath it. Before he knew what he was doing, Buccaneer's arms went around her.

"Body heat," he grunted. "Extra warmth."

"Of course," Olivier said. Finally submitting to exhaustion, she let her head rest just a little on his shoulder.

"Thank you," she said in such a low voice he might have missed it if he hadn't already been hyperaware of everything she was doing.

"Of course." He felt confident enough to get a little closer to her. She bristled under his touch at first, then slowly relaxed. He wondered how long it had been since anyone had touched her like this.

Judging by the wetness of her eyes, he wondered if she had ever felt loved at all.


	2. Grief

Olivier sat down in front of his grave and gazed at it. She placed her hands on her belly and rested them there a while. Just as one life had been destroyed, another had been created. Olivier had lived an entire lifetime in the past week, from fighting homunculi to informing families to attending funerals of her "traitorous" comrades to fending off the press to losing the person she loved most in the world. Yet somehow, amidst all this turbulence, turmoil, confusion and grief, she'd known she was late.

At first she'd attempted to write it off as stress-related; that had happened before. But after finally being seen by a doctor for her injuries, there was no longer any doubt. Nor was there any doubt about the father.

Olivier's first instinct had been a trip to the Central abortion clinic. She wasn't a mother, she would never be a mother, and the child would be miserable with her as a mother. But then she saw how few people showed up to Buccaneer's funeral. She saw how people pissed on his grave and cursed him out for killing the Fuhrer. She wanted to scream at them, stab them, force them to realize how wrong they were. But she was in enough trouble already and they wouldn't listen to her anyway.

But she would see to it that  _someone_  knew the truth about her bravest Briggs man. And this tombstone that bore his name wasn't the only thing left of him. Olivier was carrying a part of Buccaneer deep inside her. He had saved her life many times in many ways. She owed it to him to protect a part of his life and help it grow into something good.

"You  _will_  live on," she whispered. "I've got your successor right here." She patted her stomach. "I hate to venture into a new battlefield without my captain, but I will do right by you. That's a promise." She bowed her head. "No matter what anyone else says, you were the strongest, bravest, and most loyal man I've ever known."

Olivier's chin began to tremble and she knew she had to get out of here before she lost it. She kissed her fingertips and placed one hand on the stone and kept the other over her stomach. "I love you."

She was speaking to both of them.


	3. Birth

"Don't push, Olivier. Just breathe. Breathe and rest."

Olivier let out a small scream. That was quite possibly the most difficult order she'd ever had to follow. She opened her eyes and stared at her heaving bump, which was now half the size of the Briggs mountain range, or at least it felt that way since she couldn't even see her feet. The baby had been kicking like crazy for hours, trying to wiggle its way out the same path it had come in. Her back was killing her and her feet were trapped in these uncomfortable stirrups that were making her knees ache. As cold as the room was in the dead of winter, she was sweating bullets.

She'd been doing this for hours and was still just as heavily pregnant as she had been the day before. The kid  _still_ wasn't anywhere close to being out yet and she wanted to know what the hell was taking so long.

"Your contractions are slowing down, so I'm going to give you a sedative to make you sleep for a bit." Olivier groaned and the doctor squeezed her arm reassuringly. "I know you're eager, but the baby will only come when it's ready. Hopefully that will be by the time you wake up. In the meantime you should sleep while you can."

Olivier nodded and was relieved when her feet were released from the stirrups. She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the pillow as the sedative traveled through her veins. She drifted to sleep, breathing as deeply as was possible with a child's head in her lungs.

* * *

"One! Two! Three!"

"Agh!" Olivier felt pain, panic, and anxiety combine with a determination to push as hard as she could the second the contraction rocked her exhausted body, along with annoyance at the men pushing down on her stomach. The doctor's vacuum roared as she held it a little too close to Olivier's genitals for comfort, trying to force the baby out.

"You're so close! I can see the head," the doctor told her.

"What does it look like?" Olivier asked breathlessly.

"I can't tell yet, you've got to push a little more. The next one should hit in about one, two—"

Olivier focused all of her remaining energy on pushing as hard as she could make her muscles go.  _Come on come on!_

Seconds later, she was rewarded by a piercing shriek as her baby left her body and entered the world, covered in what looked like chocolate (she'd indulged her cravings quite a bit while pregnant), red-faced, naked, and crying its little eyes out. The men blocked her view and crowded the doctor, who was in the process of cutting the cord, to get a closer look.

"It's here!"

"It's a boy."

"General, you have a son."

"And he has hair. A lot of it."

"He's a huge baby."

"Wow, that little guy can yell."

"Get out of my way," Olivier said, struggling to sit up. "Let me see." She had waited nine months and an extra week and a half to see her son, and she would not wait a second longer.

"All right, everyone out!" the doctor yelled over the wails of the little boy in her arms. She shifted him to her shoulder, bounced him a little, and glanced at Olivier, who was desperately holding her arms out for her son, her heart already aching for him. The doctor softened her tone. "Olivier, just let me clean him up and I'll bring him right back. Then you can hold him as long as you like."

"Hurry up," Olivier said. She wanted to see him now. She needed him. She could barely keep still or think straight.  _My son. I have a son. Buccaneer's son. At last I'll get to see him…_

Five minutes later, she did. When he was settled in her arms, something happened inside Olivier she couldn't quite place. She felt a huge tidal wave of protectiveness surging in her chest. It was similar to what she'd felt for Buccaneer, but a billion times stronger. She had only just had her first glance at her baby boy and she already knew that she would move mountains, be killed a thousand times, take on the scariest of monsters and humans alike, and much,  _much_  more if he needed her to. He was perfect.  _I love him. I love him I love him I love him._

Olivier sat back against propped-up pillows, her stomach now empty, and cradled the tiny blue bundle as gently as her murderous, permanently blood-stained arms could. He had stopped crying and was resting his head against her chest, making little baby sounds. She peered into his sweet face as he looked up at her with an expression that was so innocent and loving it made her heart melt. Her finger traced his jet-black Armstrong curl that matched the color of his eyes.

He looked exactly like his father.

"Welcome to Briggs," she said softly, kissing his round cheeks over and over again. He reached up with his soft arm and wiggled his tiny fingers as if trying to grasp something. She curled her fingers into his and hummed a lullaby. His eyes never strayed from her face.

"I promise I won't let anything happen to you," she said to him. "Mama Bear loves her little cub." She nuzzled her nose against his and he smiled, well as much a newborn could smile anyway. Then he scrunched up his little face and puckered like he was ready to cry again.

"What's the matter?" Olivier asked. Had she done something wrong already? He pushed his head against her chest and she remembered the fullness in her breasts. "Oh, you're hungry." She was grateful for the privacy everyone had given her when she stripped off the gown and held him close to her breasts. He latched on immediately, closed his eyes, and suckled hungrily.

Olivier smiled proudly. "You really are just like your father, aren't you?" she teased. She could almost hear Buccaneer saying, "I'll have what he's having!" in a suggestive tone. He had been the last person allowed to touch her breasts until now.

When the baby finished nursing, he had milk all over his mouth and she smiled as she wiped it off for him and noticed his eyes were closing. She held him close to her, burped him a little, and sang the lullaby again. He was asleep by the end of the song. Olivier kissed the top of his dark head and sat very still so she wouldn't disturb him.

Only then did she finally allow herself to hold him as tightly to her as she could and shed more tears than she ever had in her life.


	4. War

Olivier fell in love for the second time.

Her son was the center of her existence. She lived, ate, slept, and breathed him every day and night. He followed her, clung to her, cried for her, and only fell asleep in her arms. His first word was Mama.

Olivier had named him Buccaneer Miles Armstrong, but nobody called him that. The soldiers who played with him and babysat him while she was at work called him Little Bear.

"Come here, Little Bear. Time for your snack."

"Time for bed, Little Bear."

"Hey, Little Bear! Wanna go see Mama?"

"Does Little Bear need to be changed?"

Olivier had frowned upon this and tried to discourage it, not wanting him to be stuck with something so silly and demeaning. She ordered them with a stern look on her face to call her son by the name she had proudly bestowed upon him for a very important and serious reason, but it seemed that was the one command nobody would follow. One of her men pointed out that Buccaneer was too heavy a name for such a little guy and that Little Bear was a bit more reasonable for now. Besides, they argued, his father probably would have liked it and it wasn't like the kid couldn't choose to go by something else when he got older. Olivier disagreed, but when her son started responding only to Little Bear and nothing else, she finally gave up. She had to admit, it did suit him.

Just like he had in the womb, Little Bear grew quickly. Olivier was amazed at how soon he was sitting up and saying semblances of words. He became active and wanted constant attention. Olivier had thought playing with her son would be a chore since she wasn't one for games, but surprisingly, it wasn't. All she had to do most days was sit on the floor and roll a ball back and forth, doodle on a piece of paper, read him a story, or just sit and watch. It filled her with a sense of purpose and contentment that kept her smiling for hours.

But Olivier worried too. Little Bear was as much of a daredevil as his father and Briggs was a dangerous place. But more than that, she had this apprehensive feeling that what she had with her son was too good to be true, that  _he_ was too good to be true. She knew, deep down, that all good things came to an end.

She didn't have to wait long.

Little Bear had just had his fourth birthday when Drachma invaded. Normally that wouldn't have been a problem for the Briggs army, but this time Drachma had come prepared with a secret weapon: They now had their very own state alchemists.

She had known that Drachma had  _some_  alchemists, but for the most part the country frowned on the practice, saying that it was nontraditional and a crime against the natural order. In fact, most parts of Drachma forbade even learning about it and burned all books related to the subject, so she had never worried about that as a potential threat. What she hadn't known, however, was that the new king who had taken the throne was  _very_ interested in the impact alchemy had on Ishval and how much damage it had done. So much so that he had spent years secretly creating an army of human weapons and was now unleashing them on the fort.

They had started out as spies who arrived under the pretense of a peace treaty, skirting around the frozen wasteland until they were close to the fort. Olivier had to hand it to them, they were smart to only send in a few men instead of an entire army that the scouts would have seen a mile away. Then, with one transmutation circle and a clap of their hands, the entire wall came crumbling down. A whole section of the northern wall was gone, and with no more barriers, the snow came pouring in. The soldiers rushed into battle, but guns and tanks that had to be carefully loaded and fueled and aimed were useless against people who had the power to make the ground cave under their feet and the ceiling crash to the ground in mere seconds.

For the first time in her career, Olivier had no plan. No backup strategy, no last resort, nothing. Ashamed and scared of what might happen next and angry with herself for not seeing this coming, she snatched up Little Bear, sheathed her sword, and ran for her life.

It went against everything she believed in to run from a battle, but her fort was gone, her weapons were a pile of rubble, most of her men had either been killed or had already fled. And now that they were in chaos, the actual army was showing up right behind the alchemists. If it had just been Olivier, she would have fought to the death no matter how fruitless it was. But she had a child to protect, and she needed to get him out of this hellhole. His life and safety were more important than her pride.

Little Bear screamed from the cold, tears freezing on his face. He didn't go outside very often, and when he did, he was bundled up as much as humanly possible. But there hadn't been time for that. He'd never been anywhere near the battlefield, but now he was seeing the people who had taken care of him die before his eyes. Olivier held him close to her and sprinted through the snow, trying to see past the blur of white and desperately searching for a cave, a shed,  _something_.

"Here." She stopped, set him down for just a moment, and stripped off her Briggs coat. "Put this on." Little Bear struggled into it and she wrapped it around him and picked him up again, pulling the fur hood over his head. It was much too big for him, but it would warm him up a bit. Olivier shivered without it and wished she had her baby carrier. It was a nice little seat that went around her shoulders and allowed her son to ride next to her middle; it would have helped with body heat and kept her hands free. But there was nothing to be done about it now, and she couldn't possibly expect Little Bear to keep up on foot, nor could she expect him to handle the blizzard as well as she could.

"Mommy, you're cold without your coat!" Little Bear exclaimed fearfully as her shivers jolted him.

"I'll be fine." She pressed her frozen lips to his forehead. "We'll be all right."

"Mommy, I'm scared! I wanna go home!" Little Bear wailed, wrapping his arms around her neck and burying his head in her shoulder.

"You remember what I promised you, right? I won't let anything happen to you. I'll get us somewhere safe."

"You're not going anywhere." Olivier froze. Somehow even over the roar of the icy winds, she could still hear that voice. Her heart sank at the Drachman accent and she instinctively held Little Bear tighter. She squinted and her fears were confirmed. A gun was pointed directly in front of her face. She backed away only to find another one. And another. And another.

"What do you want?" she demanded, hating the pleading tone in her voice. She spoke in Drachman so Little Bear wouldn't understand. "You've already destroyed the fort and killed my men; what more could you possibly need from me?"

"Mommy, what are—"

"Hush!" she warned. "Let me handle this."

"We plan on taking you prisoner so we can have some negotiations with the Amestrian government." The man who was in front of her, the first one she'd seen, held out his hand. "But first give us the boy."

"Never!" Resisting the urge to spit at their feet, Olivier supported her child with one hand and moved the other to her sword. She had carried this baby under her heart for nine months. She would die before she gave him up.

"We don't intend to harm him. He'll be kept in a holding place while we deal with you, that's all. Either hand him over or we'll take him by force."

"Over my dead body, you scum." She withdrew her sword and heard the clicks of the safety being removed from the guns. Little Bear whimpered.

"If you don't give him to us, then we'll just shoot you both. One sword is no match for six guns." She could hear the smirk. "Face it, Northern Wall. You've lost."

"My son has nothing to do with this," Olivier insisted, trying to buy time. "Leave him out of it. Do what you will with me, but leave him alone."

"As I just said, we mean him no harm. But he could potentially prove useful to us. He's young enough that he won't remember you after you're separated."

That wasn't true. It couldn't be. Four years old wasn't too young to remember. She could remember being four. Vaguely, barely, but she could. She looked around. There had to be a way out of this.

"She's not going to give him up." One of the other soldiers spoke up, and Olivier could tell it was a woman's voice. The storm was beginning to let up, and by now Olivier could see the faces of her attackers. All of them were men except for this one, and all looked stern and gruff. But the woman…Olivier noticed how she was looking at Little Bear with the slightest hint of sorrow, how her belly curved slightly and her breasts were a little larger than average. Her body was eerily similar to the way Olivier's had looked in the days after giving birth, and her eyes were compassionate. This woman had kids. She was sure of it.

"I can see that!" the leader snapped at her. "We're going to have to shoot them—"

"Wait," Olivier said. She kept her eyes on the woman, who met her gaze. This was her absolute last resort, a humiliating plan and it probably wouldn't work, but she would try anything if it meant keeping Little Bear safe. She took a deep breath, summoned up a few tears, and made her voice as pitiful as she could.

"Please don't take my baby," she said. "He's no threat to you. You can have anything else. Anything, just not him. I'll give you whatever you want if you just let me keep him and don't hurt him. Money, military secrets, anything you want, it's yours." The Olivier of five years ago would have had no respect for anyone who said something like that. The Olivier of now didn't care. " _Please_. He's my baby, and he's the only one I've got. The only one I'll ever have." They didn't look convinced.

She looked the woman straight in the eye. "I know you understand." Olivier swallowed hard and this time a tear really did escape as she hugged Little Bear and kissed his cheek. "His father died before he was born. I'm the only family he has. Surely a mother can understand that."

The woman hesitated, then turned uneasily to the leader. "Sir, children that young can't make very good soldiers—"

"I've heard enough!" he bellowed. "Give him to us  _now_."

"Mommy!" Little Bear sobbed at the harshness of the man's voice.

"I'm your mommy now," the leader jeered in Amestrian.

Olivier started, surprised and angered that he would say something like that. Then she knew why.

The grey clouds moved on. The winds died down. The angry whirls of ice turned to a gentle snowfall. The sun peaked out, illuminating the glittering white land. It was then that Olivier saw the scar on her attacker's temple, the ends of a mustache peaking out from underneath his mask. She held back a gasp.

It was Koschey Vlaas.

He had made headlines even in foreign newspapers. Accused of rape, sexual assault, battery, he'd been one of the worst military criminals in history, even in a chaotic country like Drachma. But due to "lack of admissible evidence" (meaning he had bought off the courts), he was only convicted on two counts: child abduction and child molestation. Even then he had gotten off with only a few months of jail time and, because of his connections with the royal family, he had been reinstated in the military despite protests. The children that he got his hands on often didn't speak for a long time and required surgery on their genitals. Most had contracted horrible viruses and diseases that killed them, and girls as young as nine had been forced to have his children.

Olivier barely held back a scream. Just the thought of this monster anywhere near her son made her want to throw up.

"I can see you mean business," she replied in Drachman, trying to keep her voice from shaking. She was about to do the hardest thing she had ever done in her entire life. "All right. You win."

The smile Koschey gave her made her insides tremble. He holstered his gun and held out his arms, moving closer to her. "Excellent. Now just put him in my arms nice and easy."

"As you wish." She shifted Little Bear, who was looking up at her tearfully, and moved her hand to her left side. "As you wish,  _sir!_ " She emphasized the last word by whipping out her sword and sending it right through his arm, just as she had with General Raven all those years ago. Before he could finish his scream of pain, she darted through the gap he had created for her when he'd moved and sprinted toward the shelter of the woods she knew so well. Bullets fired, but only one managed to graze her shoulder. When she reached the tree that had a hollow opening in the bottom, she stopped, checked around her to make sure the Drachmans hadn't caught up with her yet, and carefully set Little Bear inside the tree. Olivier pushed the snow close to the opening with her hands and held back her tears.

"Mommy, you're bleeding." Little Bear pointed to her shoulder. He was shaking so badly. She wrapped her arms around him one last time.

"Don't worry about me, I'll be all right. I need you to listen to me."

"O-okay."

She held his shoulders and looked into his fearful dark eyes. Faintly, shouting could be heard from the edge of the woods. "I need you to stay here and be completely quiet. You hear me? Don't make a sound and do  _not_ leave this place. Hold onto my coat and keep warm. I'll come back for you as soon as I can."

"You're leaving?" he whispered, clutching her.

"I have to. Those people want to hurt us. I can fight them, but I want you to be safe. Promise me that you'll stay here and be quiet." He nodded. "Good boy. Now I need you to follow these directions very carefully, just like a soldier would. Can you do that?"

He nodded slowly. "I guess so."

"If I don't come back—"

"No!" he latched onto her even tighter and burst into tears. "No, Mommy, you have to come back! You promised."

"I'm going to try as hard as I can, but there is a chance that I may not be able to." Olivier swallowed hard. "This is just in case, okay?"

"Okay, but please come back!"

"I'll try. Now listen. Do you see that the sun is almost going down?" She pointed to the sky.

"Yes."

"I want you to wait here until the sun goes down. Do you understand? Every once in a while if you're sure no one's around, look out and see what the sky looks like. You should see the sun go down and the moon go up. If you see that and I haven't come back, then I want you to walk down the mountain and get help. We're very close to North City, so all you have to do is walk back the way we came, and then go down until you see houses. Watch out for cars and be very careful. Find a woman with children to help you and take you to the police. You remember those men in the uniforms?" Little Bear nodded. "Good. Ask her to take you to those police officers, tell them what happened, and tell them your mama wants them to take you to Grandma and Grandpa's house."

"The really big house in Central?"

"Yes. Now can you promise me that you'll remember everything I've just told you?"

"Yes, Mommy. I'll stay here and go to North City when the sun goes down."

"That's my brave soldier." Relieved, she hugged him close. The voices grew louder and she panicked a little. "You remember what I told you to do if a stranger grabs you, right?"

"Yes. I fight!"

"That's right. You kick, punch, bite, spit, do whatever you have to do and run away as fast as you can. And remember to scream. Scream as loud as you can so the people around you will notice. If you can find a woman, try and get her to help you." Olivier remembered that Drachman woman and hoped she could rely on her. "You remember the weak spots?"

"Yeah. The tummy and the neck."

"Good. You're a very good boy, Little Bear." She hugged him and kissed him fervently. "There's only one more thing I want you to remember, okay?" Her voice choked a little.

"What?"

"Remember I love you and I would do anything for you."

"I love you too, Mommy."

She set him down in the tree again and covered up the entrance with snow, just enough that he wouldn't be seen or noticed, but not enough to smother him. "Remember to be very quiet, don't let those people know you're here. I love you and be safe." She turned and ran as fast as she could in the other direction, hoping to draw the Drachmans' attention away from Little Bear. She knew he would try to follow her directions as best he could, but he was still only four years old and it was easy for him to forget things or make mistakes. It was best to keep the Drachmans from getting anywhere near him.

A task that would be much easier if she could only see through her progressively blurring vision.


	5. Loss

The shouting grew louder. Olivier removed her sword once more and crept through the trees. With any luck, maybe they had split up to search for her and she could take them out one by one. She moved quickly, trying to recall as much of her stealth training as she could. Part of her wanted to run back to Little Bear immediately, but she forced herself to focus. He was safest in that tree with her coat, where he would be at least a little bit warmer and the Drachmans wouldn't think to look for him.

Up ahead she heard someone shout in Drachman. She held out her sword, gripping it tight and ready to turn and strike at the first sign of danger. The snowy wind was clearing up just a little, and she could see a few of the soldiers heading away from her direction. That was good, but there were still too many for a sneak attack. She crouched down and lay low.

Olivier had just gotten settled in a good hiding place when she heard an all-too familiar roar. The Drachmans screamed and Olivier knew without having to look that they had just run into a Briggs mountain grizzly bear. There was more shouting, a few sounds of desperate gunshots, and then screams and the nauseating sound of bone being crunched as they were eaten alive.

Olivier felt a wave of relief that was quickly overcome by a rush of adrenaline. It was lucky the grizzly had taken out the soldiers, but it would come for her and Little Bear next. Their noses were sharp even in this weather. Well, no matter. She had killed bears before.

Slowly, when the sounds of chewing stopped, Olivier crept back out. To her surprise, the bear didn't come prowling into the woods. Maybe it was already full and going back to its cave, in which case she might have a chance to get her son to North City safely. The thought made her move faster, until she reached the edge of the wood.

There was no bear in sight. She checked all around, but apparently it had gone away quickly.  _Strange_ , she thought. They usually moved much slower when they'd just had a big meal. But at least she was spared the trouble of battling it. She sheathed her sword and began to turn around.

Before she could take another step, a burning pain landed in her shoulder and she was knocked to the ground, followed by gunshots. Next thing she knew, her arm and leg had the same burning pain, and she screamed as more shots rang out until someone called, "Enough!" in Drachman.

_What is this_ , she thought, trying to look around and seeing nothing but white sky and snow.  _What's happened?_ The pool of blood forming around her, the struggle to stay awake, and the burning all over her body told her she'd been shot in multiple places. But how? Had some of the Drachmans escaped the bear?

"What do you think, Northern Wall?" the commander from earlier asked. He was suddenly standing in front of her with a huge grin. He was holding a large portable cassette player. "We decided to have a few of our prisoners executed by feeding them to bears, and recorded the sound. Quite convincing, wouldn't you say? Personally I think our improvised gunshots were what made it."

"You…bastard," Olivier spat. Her vision was blurring. She wanted to apply pressure to her wounds, but her arms were too heavy to move.

"Such a shame the great general of Briggs can't even tell the difference between a fake bear and a recorded one," he said, shaking his head mockingly. "Or when there's a sniper positioned just above her."

_Damn_ , Olivier thought weakly. She'd been careless, and it was going to get her killed. Her eagerness to get back to Little Bear and her self-assurance that the Drachmans were dead had kept her from checking the trees.

"Stay away from my son," she gasped. "Or you'll see a war the likes of which you've never fought."

The commander slipped the cassette player back into his bag and clucked his tongue. "I beg to differ. I think Amestris will fall to its knees once they know the slightest move will result in a beloved child's untimely death. Now save us a little time and tell us where he is."

"Never," Olivier said with conviction.

"Fine." He shot her one more time in the other leg. "I'm sure we can do it without your help. In the mean time, feel free to die slowly. Move out!" he called to the distance, and he left with footsteps trailing behind him.

Olivier lay there, gasping for breath and fighting a losing battle to stay awake. She wasn't going to fool herself into thinking she could or would survive this. Even her body had its limits. She would die a soldier, like Buccaneer had so long ago.

And yet, Olivier shook when she thought of how even though they were both soldiers, Olivier had the added burden of dying a mother. Buccaneer hadn't known that he was a parent, so he wouldn't have been able to think of all he was going to miss. As Olivier lay dying in the snow, she thought of Little Bear's first day of school, his first loose tooth, his first job. He had shown interest in being a soldier like her and his dad; whether he would still feel that way when he was older she would never know.

And of course, that was if he even survived. If the unforgiving mountain or the Drachmans didn't kill him first. If they didn't take him far away from his home, to a place where he didn't know anybody and didn't speak the language, and did horrible things to him. She had left him there with no food; why hadn't it occurred to her to grab some provisions before leaving the fort? He didn't even have any water. He would probably die of starvation or dehydration because of her thoughtless mistakes.

She had always known the fort was a dangerous place for a child. Her family had fought with her to leave him at the mansion for years. Why hadn't she listened? Why did Olivier have to let her feelings get in the way? Now Little Bear was paying the price for it. She had killed him.

_I failed you_ , she thought as her eyes closed and a drop of warmth slid down her cheek.  _I led you to your death just like I led your father. I'm sorry._

_I'm sorry…_


End file.
